Australian Sky & Telescope — January 01, 2018

56 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE January 2018

COSMIC RELIEF by David Grinspoon

MANDEL NGAN / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

LIKE MANY ASTRONOMY enthusiasts,

I long ago caught the total solar

eclipse bug, and I’ve joined eclipse

expeditions to other countries to stand

in the shadow, in awe, with my fellow

converts. In addition to the always

sublime totality, this offers an excuse

for going new places, following curves

inscribed on the globe by a cosmic

airbrush, and meeting other devotees

along the way.

Totality has always been hard

to explain to those who’ve never

experienced it. Which is why it’s always

exciting to see friends and relatives, not

to mention vast multitudes of deserving

strangers, finally getting the chance to

see what all the fuss is about.

One thing I don’t worry about

is over-hyping it. One friend — a

planetary scientist, no less — posted

that she didn’t see why everyone gets

so worked up about a total eclipse.

Naturally, when probed, she revealed

that she’d never actually seen one.

Or rather, I should say, never ‘been

in’ one. What the uninitiated don’t

understand is that totality is not merely

something interesting you observe at a

distance, but something that happens

all around you and inside you as well,

transforming your inner and outer

landscapes in surprising ways.

There’s the growing, creeping

strangeness as totality approaches,

when the light slowly thins, the colours

become dreamlike, and the very air

seems somehow transmuted. And then

there’s the intense, slightly frightening

exhilaration of totality — the brevity

adding to the thrill and the sense of

time dilation. It really does cleanse the

doors of our perception and put us into

an altered state.

We astronomy fans are used

to feeling connected to distant

phenomena. The site of an open

star cluster seen through a telescope

moves us. Not everyone gets this, but

for anyone who witnesses totality,

the feeling of a deep concord is

unavoidable, and certain truths that

we know in our heads suddenly become

apparent in our guts.

Our human senses are stubbornly

resistant to the Copernican insight

that we live on a celestial body and that

the sky is a vast landscape in which

we dwell. During totality we detect

the motions of Earth, Sun and Moon,

giving us a direct feel for the kinetic

geometry of our universe. A veil of

delusion lifts when, during daylight,

we briefly see the stars right where they

always are. I’m also always struck by

how close the Moon seems.

All this adds up to a moment of

profound communion with the cosmos

and our fellow humans. Afterward,

you feel newly bonded with whomever

you’re with. It’s an experience we

should never take for granted.

The fact that we can appreciate

this arises from a great deal of cosmic

evolution: the violent origin of our

planet and our unusually large Moon;

the evolution of life, then animal life,

then intelligent life; and, in the last few

centuries, a scientific culture that can

study the cosmos. All of that culminates

in this experience and allows us to

appreciate it with both our heads and

our hearts.

In my worldview, the scientific and

the spiritual are melded in reverence for

nature. There’s no time I’ve felt more in

tune with both than during a total solar

eclipse. A group of friends and I are

already contemplating a trip to Chile or

Argentina in July 2019.

„DAVID GRINSPOON, an astrobiologist,

author, and musician, can be followed on

Twitter as @DrFunkySpoon.

Cosmic communion

A total solar eclipse is a chance for millions of people to

experience a profound moment of celestial accord.

For anyone who witnesses totality, the feeling of a deep bond is

unavoidable, and certain truths become apparent in our guts.